Routine
Routine: a regular unfolding.
On day 36 of the stay-at-home order, the routine of it all is settling in. At first, I struggled to find the usual referent points in life. Going here or there, appointments, meetings, get-togethers, all evaporated, all set aside for some future somewhere out of my sight. I was advised to develop a routine. I heard the advice of the naval captain about the benefits of routine, and at first, I balked. I was so accustomed to letting the next thing happening trigger all that I did. I had been driven by external triggers—and then there were none—and I found myself standing in a void, grasping at things that were not there. External triggers, schedules, doings and goings, ways of relating in life had vanished, seemingly overnight.
Some echoes permeated the invisible boundaries of my void, others sorting through their lives, living through the same struggles, but for the most part, it was now up to me to develop an internally driven schedule. I had to shift my focus. In the silence, there was no need to say no to anyone because I was too busy. There was no need to say no at all. There was no busy. There was also no need to say yes. What had been relished quiet moments now expanded to fill the majority of my days. Days became open spaces, blank slates, places for small choices to stack up.
Writing came first, a daily blog. Then breakfast, and posting the blog. My bed, never made, always airing out; music is bumping in at the edges; old friends in books and movies make themselves at home again. I pedal away on the stationary bike in the afternoon. There are phone calls and online games and digital sharings, and these keep up connections with those I love. Laundry gets done frequently. Dishes, too. Watercolors sit on the edge of my desk. Games fill the evenings. No TV. Just the quiet of breathing, and the dog, and life in the yard. I feel this new rhythm settling in, unfolding now.
Now, with over a month into this quiet place, this routine is settling in, I’m learning to hear more clearly my deepest stillest voice, and I feel like I’m unfolding.